Trust me, music fans, it pays major dividends to have friends stationed around the world. A former college roommate sent me a link to Korean rock band Eastern Sidekick’s (이스턴 사이드킥) music on Facebook, with the following quick message:

You’re always on the lookout for music people haven’t heard. Saw these guys in a poorly attended Hongdae dive bar and was pretty blown away.

A little digging led to this exceptional clip for “Flight for Rainbow” (무지개를 위한 싸움) which immediately blew me away with its ear-catching riffs and a vocalist with the kind of voice which blends memories of all manner of 90s alternative classics into a pop-worthy track which far more deserves the viral treatment than anything Psy has produced. Forget K-Pop … these Koreans flat-out rock! Like a crazy cross between the rocking attack of early Foo Fighters coupled with what the Verve Pipe’s vocalist would have sounded like had he not been a total tool, this is a band seriously worthy of repetitive listening.

For further enjoyment, I recommend “The Exciting Song” (흥겨운 노래) which showcases how they must have sounded in that Hongdae dive bar. Instead I’m in Indiana wishing I’d been a fly on that wall!

I love this intro, it is really upbeat and just really cool! And he has a pretty cool voice, sounds a bit like Billy Joe out of Green Day (but with a slightly different and very cool edge!) which I realise sounds ridiculous as I realise he’s singing in Korean. Thank you for introducing me to a really cool sounding band. 🙂

Do I like this better than a lot of Kpop? Yes – but I do not think it is fair to insult all of Kpop. The guys in Kpop work hard, they have trained hard, and Eastern Sidekick does a great cover of Big Bangs G Dragon’s,” Monster ” and G Dragon is Kpop, To compare PSY to these guys is sort of silly. It’s kind of like being from Mars and comparing Lady Gaga’s stage performance to Gogol Bordello’s because they are humans.